Traffic door



TRAFFIC DOOR 4 Sheets-Sheet l Filed May 20, 1964 Jan. 3, 1967 R. H. PFLEGER ETAL 3,295,589

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TRAFFIC DOOR 4 Sheets-Sheet 4 Filed May 20, 1964 A55) oN no) '/@55 Si R bari, C. akwzh www United States Patent O 3,295,589 TRAFFIC DOOR Robert H. Pfleger, Milwaukee, George E. McGuire,

Thiensville, and Robert C. Beckwith, Glendale, Wis.,

assignors to Kelley Company, Inc., Milwaukee, Wis.,

a corporation of Wisconsin Filed May 20, 1964, Ser. No. 368,793 3 Claims. (Cl. 160-327) This invention relates to doors and refers more particularly to two-way swinging doors of the type that are biased to closed position but capable of being swung open by simply pushing on them or driving a fork-lift truck, or other materials handling equipment against them. Obviously, such doors must be rugged. Fl`=hey should also be wholly transparent or have a sutliciently large transparent area to avoid accidents. These requirements have posed a problem which heretofore has not been satisfactorily solved.

It is, therefore, the purpose and object of this invention to provide an improved `swinging door or closure which, because of its improved design and construction, meets the demands for ruggedness, safety and ease of operation and still has a relatively low cost.

Another object of this invention is to provide a doorway closure of the character described wherein a pair of complementary swinging doors are not only biased to closed position but, in addition, have substantial portions of their adjacent free edges overlapping when in closed position.

With a View toward achieving maximum resistance to abrasion in that portion of the door with which materials handling trucks collide as they are driven through the doorway, and also providing a transparent area or window large enough to assure against accidents, this invention has as another of its objects to provide a door having an upper section which is essentially transparent, but not necessarily very exible, and la lower section of rubber or rubber-like material, so as to have the required ilexibility and still be able to withstand the abrasion and impact to which doors of this type are subjected.

A further object of this invention is to provide a door of the character described having an upper transparent section and a lower flexible section, both of which sections are supportingly connected with or suspended from a rigid frame having an upright rail which provides the hinged edge portion of the door and a laterally projecting arm extending across the top ofthe door.

A still further object of this invention is to provide an improved cam and` cam follower structure to yieldingly hold the door closed, wherein the cam follower is carried by a plunger slideably mounted in a tubular member which forms the main part of the laterally projecting arm of the rigid frame.

With the above and other objects in view which will appear as the description proceeds, this invention resides in the novel construction, combination and arrangement of parts substantially as hereinafter described and more particularly defined by the appended claims, it being understood that such changes in the precise embodiment of the hereindisclosed invention may be made as come within the scope of the claims.

The accompanying drawings illustrate two complete examples of the physical embodiment of the invention, constructed according to the best modes so far devised for the practical application of the principles thereof, and in which:

FIGURE l is a front elevational View of a door or closure embodying this invention, illustrating the same in its closed condition;

FIGURE 2 is a front elevational View of the upper and lower portions of one of the two doors, with parts ICC thereof broken away and in section, to better illustrate details;

FIGURE 3 is a horizontal sectional view through FIGURE 2 on the plane of the line 3-3;

FIGURE 4 is a detail cross sectional view through FIGURE 2 on the plane of the line 4 4;

FIGURE 5 is a perspective View of the upper portion of one of the doors with parts thereof broken away;

FIGURE 6 is a detail sectional View through FIGURE l on the plane of the line 6 6; and

FIGURE 7 is a front elevational view of a door drawn to a smaller scale and illustrating a slightly modied embodiment of the invention.

Referring now particularly to the accompanying drawings in which like numerals indicate like parts throughout the several views, the numeral 10 designates a doorway in' a wall of a building, which may be an exterior or an interior wall, and which doorway is defined by a frame having stiles 11 and a header 12. A pair of complementary swinging doors, designated generally by the -numerals 13, 13', is mounted in the frame of the doorway to swing in either direction from a closed position in which the free edges of the doors are contiguous and, in fact, have their lower portions overlapping.

Each door comprises a rigid, inverted substantially L- shaped frame 14, having an upright rail 15 and a laterally extending arm 16, an upper substantially transparent section 17, and a lower flexible section 18; The two sections 17 and 18 are joined together at their contiguous edges and both sections are supportingly connected with the inverted L-shaped frame to be supported thereby, the upper section being connected with the vertical rail 15 and section 1S being connected only with the vertical rail 15.

Each door is hingedly mounted by means of top and bottom pintles 20 and 21, mounted on the stiles 11 and received in upper and lower sockets 22 and 23, respectively, .fixed to the top and bottom ends of the upright rail 15. Specifically, the upper and lower sockets 22 and 23 are set into the opposite ends of a square tube 24 which forms part of the upright rail 15.

The laterally extending arm 16 of the rigid door frame also consists essentially of a square tube 25, the tubes 24 and 25 being rigidly connected by a diagonal gusset plate 26 which is welded to both of these tubes. The tubes 24 and 25 are further connected by a bar 27 welded to the underside of the laterally projecting tube 25 and to the top #of the socket 22 which, as noted hereinbefore, is lixed to the adjacent top end of the upright tube 24. A hole through the bar 27 in line with the bore of the socket 22 may form part of the socket and, if desired, may be slightly smaller than the inside diameter of the socket, to provide the actual bearing for the pintle 20.

The pintle 20 is simply a pin projecting downwardly from the horizontal leg 28 of a bracket 29 which is xed to the adjacent stile 11. The horizontal leg 2S of this bracket also provides a cam which, as will be hereinafter described, provides part of the means by which the door is yieldingly held in its closed position. The bottom pintle 21 is also simply a pin projecting from the horizontal member 36 of a right-angle bracket 31 fixed to the stile 11 at the bottom thereof.

The upper and lower door sections 17 and 18 a-re supportingly connected with the inverted L-shaped frame by being clamped between plates 32 and 33, the former of which is welded to the square tubes 24 and 25. Since the upper section 17 of the door is thinner than the lower section, shims are preferably provided between the faces of the upper section and the plates 32 and 3.3, the thickness of the shims, plus that of the upper section, equalling the thickness of the lower section. Y

The joint between the upper and lower door sections,

. 3 as best seen in FIGURE 6, is formed by nesting the bottom edge ofthe upper section in a groove 34 formed in the rubber bottom section and extending all the way from the hinged edge of the door to its opposite free edge. Extruded beads or strips 35 are then clamped to the opposite sides of the joined portions of the upper and lower sections. Preferably these extruded strips have inner, concealed, flat flanges 36 which overlie the adjacent face of the lower section, and securing or attaching bolts 37 pass through these flanges and through the nested edge portions of the door sections, to clamp the entire -structure together; it being understood that the outer lianges 38 of the extrudedv strips, which cover the attaching bolts, may be folded back where necessary to enable inserting and tightening the bolts 37. The means for yieldingly holding the doors in their closed positions comprises -a cam track 40 formed by the edge of the horizontal legs 28 of the bracket 29, which faces the free edge of the door. As best seen in FIGURES 3 and 5, this cam track 40 is substantially heart-shaped, with a depression 41 at its midpoint. Hence, by yieldingly urging a cam follower roller 42, which is carried by the door, into this depression, the door will be held in its closed position.

Conveniently, the cam follower roller 42 is mounted onthe outer end of a plunger 43, which is slidably received in the square tube 25 'and has its end portion, which carries the roller, projecting from the tube. A compression spring 44 also received in the square tube 25 and confined between the inner end of the plunger 43 and an adjustable spring stop 45, presses the roller 42 against the cam track with a force depending upon the location ofthe stop 45. This location is adjustable by a screw 46 threaded in a plug 47 which closes the adjacent end of the square tube 25. K Preferably the opposite sides of the plunger 43 have slide blocks 48 fixed thereto to reduce friction between the plunger and the tube and permit the plunger to move more freely back and forth as the door opens and closes.

Y Obviously, of course, the specific shape of the cam track 40 is subject to modification and will be dictated by pre- Y vailing conditions and the results most desired. Thus,

for instance, if a substantial pressure differential obtainsV at opposite vsides of the door, it would be best that the cam track havea shape which provides greater resistance to movement of the doors inone direction thanr the other.

Also, if desired, the cam track 40 may have a shapeV chosen to releasably hold the doors open; the important consideration being that, by Virtue of the particular construction here employed, any desired cam shape can be chosen and smooth action will be obtained at all times.

As noted hereinbefore, the upper section 17 of the door is substantially transparent to assure against accidents by enabling the operator of a fork lift truck or other materials-handling apparatus, to see traffic and conditions at the opposite side of theV door as he approaches the same.

To provide the desired transparency and still give the upper section 17 some flexibility, it is preferably formed of polycarbonate cellulose acetate butyrol, or some similar plastic. This material is capable of some flexure, but has the disadvantage of not being very resistant to abrasion and indentation by objects striking the same. For this reason, it is Vnot feasible to make the entireV door of polycarbonate or its equivalent. Accordingly, the lower section, which preferably provides the entire lower half of the door, is formed of rubber or a rubber-like material. As such, the lower door section has great flexibility and a very high resistance to abrasion and impact, even by the sharp corners of fork lift trucks and other materials-handling equipment driven against the door to open it.

The flexibility of the lower door section provides still another advantage. It enables the contiguous free edge portions of the two complementary doors 13, 13', or at least their lower portions, to overlap without incurring the objectionable consequences of edge-'to-edge' collision of the doors which sometimes occurs as the doors swing toward closed position. Overlapping of the doors provides more complete closure of the door opening and i permits the doors to be detachably held in their closed positions by conventional permanent magnet means 50.

Attention is directed to the fact that the overlap of the lower door sections is substantial. In practice,.it is at least four inches on a door of ordinary size. This relatively large overlap has the advantage of reducing to a minimum the likelihood of edge-to-edge engagement or."

hood that they would so collide is relatively remote.`

However, in the rare instances when they do meet edgeto-edge, the flexibility of the material of which the lower door sections are made would allow these portions of the doors to Hex and quickly permit them to pass each other.

While the extent to which the lower door sections overlap is not critical, it should be sufficient to attain the described advantages of wide overlap, and of course the material of which the lower overlapping sections are made, should possess substantial exibility.

The upper door sections 17 should not collide with one another and, therefore, the width of these sections is slightly less than half the distance between'the hinge axes of the two doors.

Being supported at the top and alongV their Yhinged edges, the doors inevitably tend to wrap, just from hang-v ing, but this tendency is minimized by the overlap of their lower sections. It will also be apparent'that when a fork lift truck or other materials-handling device is driven against the doors and they are thereby swung open, the

lower sections will flex a Vsubstantial extent and cause the bottom edges of the upper section to be carried out of vertical alignment with their top edges. If the doors are Y not too large, the resulting ilexure of the upper sections l will have no serious effect upon the material of which they are made; but, on larger doors, this may pose a` problem. To overcome that problem, a strip or band of rubber or rubber-like material 55 maybe interposed between the top edge of the upper section and the laterally projecting -arm 16 of the rigid frame,.as shown in FIGURE 7. Obviously, the provision of this additional flexure zone relieves the upper section of stress which i Iotherwise would be imparted to it.

With a view towards closing the doorway as completely as possible with swinging doors, sealing flaps 56 may be provided to close the gaps between the hinged edges of the doors and the adjacent Stiles. These flaps may be formed of rubber or any other suitable flexible material, and preferably are mounted on the doors by having a portion thereof confined between the door sectionsand one of the plates 32-33.

From the foregoing description taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, it will be apparent to f those skilled in this art that this invention providesl an improved closure of the swinging door type Vintended to be biased .to closed position and capable of being swung open by simply driving a fork lift truck or other materialshandling apparatus directly against the doors.

What is claimed as our invention is:

1. A closure for doorways Vwherein a pair of complementary similar doors are hingedly mounted at their remote edges to swing in either direction to and from closed positions at which their free edges are contiguous, and wherein the doors are biased to their closed positions, the improvement which resides in the fact that each door comprises:

(A) a rigid inverted L-shaped frame having an upright rail extending from top to bottom of the door along its hinged edge, and a transverse arm ex ending laterally from the upper end of the rail;

(B) an upper panel section formed essentially of substantially transparent material which possesses only limited flexibility;

(C) a lower panel section formed of rubber-like material having substantial llexibility;

(D) means securing the upper panel section to the upright rail and the transverse arm of said frame;

(E) means securing the lower panel section to the upright rail,

the width of the upper panel sections being such that the free edges thereof are spaced from one another when the doors are in their closed positions, so as not to collide when the doors swing to and from closed position, and the width of the lower sections being substantially greater than that of the upper sections so that said lower sections overlap when the doors are in closed positions,

the lower panel sections having substantially greater wall thickness than the upper panel sections, and each lower panel section having a groove in its upper edge in which the lower edge portion of its compani-on upper panel section is nested;

(F) 4a rubber strip at each side of each door covering the junction of its upper and lower panel sections; and

(G) fastening means passing through the nested edge portions of the panel sections and through portions of said strips.

2. A closure for doorways wher-ein a pair of complementary similar doors are hingedly mounted at their remote edges to swing in either direction to and from closed positions at which their free edges are contiguous and wherein the doors are biased to their closed positions, the improvement which resides in the fact that each door comprises:

(A) a rigid inverted substantially L-shaped frame having an upright rail extending from top to bottom of the door along its hinged edge, and a transverse arm extending laterally from the upper end of the rail;

(B) an upper panel section formed essentially of substantially transparent material which possesses only limited flexibility;

(C) a lower panel section formed of rubber-like material having substantial flexibility;

(D) means securing the lower panel section to the upright rail;

(E) means securing all but the upper portion of the upper panel section to the upright rail;

(F) flexible connecting means joining the contiguous edges of the upper and lower panel sections,

the width of the upper panel sections being such that the free edges thereof are spaced from one another when the doors are in their closed positions, so as not to collide when the doors swing to and from closed positions, and the width of the lower panel sections being substantially greater than that of the upper panel sections, so that said lower panel sections overlap when the doors are in closed position; and

(G) a band of rubber-like material interposed between the top edge of the upper panel section of each door and the transverse arm of its rigid frame,

said band being secured to the upper panel section and to the transverse arm to supportingly connect the upper panel section with the transverse arm in a manner allowing the upper panel section to move with respect to the rigid frame without unduly stressing the upper panel section, whereby the upper panel section is protected against being cracked or` broken by the inevitable iiexure of the doors during opening land closing thereof.

3. A swinging door comprising the combination of:

(A) a rigid frame having an upright rail and a tubular arm extending laterally from the upper end of the rail;

(B) a pair of cooperating pin and socket elements at each end of the upright rail, for swingingly mounting the door,

one of each pair of elements being liXed to the rail and hence movable with the door, and the other being securable to the frame of a doorway in which the door is to be hung, and hence stationary;

(C) a panel fixed to the rigid frame at one side thereof so that the tubular arm overlies one face of the panel,

the panel projecting beyond the outer end of the arrn;

(D) means to yieldingly hold the door in its closed position comprising a cam fixed with respect to the stationary one of said pair `of elements at the upper end of the rail, having a substantially heart-shaped edge facing the free edge of the door when the latter is in its closed position;

(E) a plunger slidably received in the tubular arm of the rigid frarne with an end portion thereof projecting from the tubular arm towards said edge of the cam;

(F) a cam follower on said projecting end portion of the plunger engaging the heart-shaped edge of the cam;

(G) a spring in said tubular arm;

(H) an adjustable spring stop slidably received in the tubular arm,

the spring being confined between said stop and the plunger;

(I) la closure for the outer end of the tubular arm;

and

(I) a spring tension adjusting screw threaded in said closure and bearing against the adjustable spring stop, the head of said `screw being readily accessible at said side of the panel.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 987,467 3/ 1911 Katzenberger 16-185 2,035,823 3/1936 Moore 16-185 3,146,826 9/1964 Eckel 160354 FOREIGN PATENTS 1,316,691 12/1962 France.

180,670 9/ 1962 Sweden.

HARRISON R. MOSELEY, Primary Examiner.

P. C. KANNAN, Assistant Examiner. 

1. A CLOSURE FOR DOORWAYS WHEREIN A PAIR OF COMPLEMENTARY SIMILAR DOORS ARE HINGEDLY MOUNTED AT THEIR REMOTE EDGES TO SWING IN EITHER DIRECTION TO AND FROM CLOSED POSITIONS AT WHICH THEIR FREE EDGES ARE CONTIGUOUS, AND WHEREIN THE DOORS ARE BIASED TO THEIR CLOSED POSITIONS, THE IMPROVEMENT WHICH RESIDES IN THE FACT THAT EACH DOOR COMPRISES: (A) A RIGID INVERTED L-SHAPED FRAME HAVING AN UPRIGHT RAIL EXTENDING FROM TOP TO BOTTOM OF THE DOOR ALONG ITS HINGED EDGE, AND A TRANSVERSE ARM EXTENDING LATERALLY FROM THE UPPER END OF THE RAIL; (B) AN UPPER PANEL SECTION FORMED ESSENTIALLY OF SUBSTANTIALLY TRANSPARENT MATERIAL WHICH POSSESSES ONLY LIMITED FLEXIBILITY; (C) A LOWER PANEL SECTION FORMED OF RUBBER-LIKE MATERIAL HAVING SUBSTANTIAL FLEXIBILITY; (D) MEANS SECURING THE UPPER PANEL SECTION TO THE UPRIGHT RAIL AND THE TRANSVERSE ARM OF SAID FRAME; (E) MEANS SECURING THE LOWER PANEL SECTION TO THE UPRIGHT RAIL, 